


Till the Fear in Me Subsides

by Tito11



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 02:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2756069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tito11/pseuds/Tito11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'd both been so sure last night was their night. They were wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till the Fear in Me Subsides

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegirlwiththemouseyhair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/gifts).



> Happy birthday to thegirlwiththemouseyhair! I wanted to write you some Courtbarrow, you know - something happy to improve your day. Uh, that's not exactly what happened here. Oh well, hope you like it anyway ;)

“Wasn’t sure I’d see you again,” Thomas says when he notices Edward sitting on the bed. After the incident last night, he’d slept later than he’d meant, so he hasn’t got time to pause in dressing to stare. He can feel Edward’s blank gaze turned in his direction all the same.

“I wasn’t sure of it myself,” Edward confesses softly. He sounds on the edge of the tears he can’t rightly cry any longer.

“And yet here you are.” Thomas does up the buttons on his waistcoat and pushes down the swell of pride he feels on Edward’s behalf; he hadn’t run this time, hadn’t taken the easy road. Not that Edward has anywhere else to go, not really. There’s the in-between space, the place he returns to when he’s not here, but that’s not being somewhere, so much as it is _not_ being here, in Edward’s own words. And here, even after last night, is better than all that.

Edward sucks in a shaky breath – air he doesn’t need. Thomas exhales harshly and reaches for his coat. The silence stretches. Thomas slips the coat on, takes up the clothes brush. He gives himself a once-over in his small mirror. The mirror is angled so he can see the bed from where he’s standing. The bed is empty.

For a terrible moment, Thomas’s heart clenches and he thinks Edward’s gone, disappeared again, just like last night. He jerks round, nearly dropping the brush in the process, but Edward’s still there, sitting stiffly on the edge of the mattress, head tilted as he listens to Thomas dress. His eyes are open, his lips are parted, and damned if he isn’t the most beautiful man Thomas has ever seen. He thinks it every time, and he wants to touch, wants to run his fingers across those high cheekbones, clench the other hand – the ruined one – into those curls. 

He doesn’t move. He’d forgotten that trick about mirrors and people who aren’t really there.

“You’ll be late,” Edward reminds him after a moment, and he says it gently, as though Thomas is the one who needs taking care of. Maybe he is, at that.

“Yeah,” Thomas breathes vaguely. What does he care if he’s late? Carson will have his hide for it, but damn him and all. “Well."

“I want to kiss you,” Edward blurts suddenly, and his voice is so strong when he says it that it sends shivers down Thomas’s spine.

“Oh,” he says, because they haven’t come out and said it quite like that, either of them. But – “We’ve tried it,” he reminds Edward. “Didn’t take.”

“It will this time,” Edward insists, and he still sounds determined to see it through. It isn’t often Edward is the more optimistic of them, but Thomas doesn’t mind seeing this side of him, especially not over something like this.

“Alright, then,” he agrees, because he never was good at saying no to things that might hurt him. He goes to sit on the bed, telling himself he won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work. He lifts a hand, brings it up to hover a scant centimeter away from the skin of Edward’s face, hoping it won’t be like last night, praying his hand won’t go straight through to the other side. Last night wasn't the first time they’ve failed at this, at simple human touch, but it was the worst, and Thomas doesn’t think he can go through that again, not when he’s got to go downstairs in a moment and see the day out.

“Go on,” Edward whispers, and Thomas does. He curves his hand forward and his fingertips touch - touch skin. It’s not warm, exactly, but it’s far from the stone cold of a corpse he’d been fearing, the kind Thomas remembers only too well from the ruined body Edward left behind in the village hospital those years ago.

“I can feel you,” Edward says. He turns his head into the touch and smiles, the great big happy one Thomas only rarely gets to see. The muscles in his cheek flex and work under Thomas’s fingers. “I can’t believe… I never thought-”

Thomas doesn’t let him finish, leans forward instead and kisses him silent. Edward’s lips are softer than Thomas had expected, but they’re solid and real, and for Thomas – who hasn’t been kissed (or done the kissing) in longer than he’d like to remember – they’re like coming home, or better put – like hearing music again after a long silence and realizing quite suddenly you’d been bored half to death of the quiet. They kiss, the two of them, for long, long moments, and it's worth it - Thomas can see that now - worth all the waiting and the heartbreak, if only to get to this moment.

But Thomas, at least, still has to breathe, and eventually he must pull away. He keeps his hand where it is on Edward’s face, though – half for sheer joy at being able to _feel_ and half in terror that they might lose the ability to touch again so soon if they’re parted. He can feel the flush in his face, hopes Edward can feel the rapid patter of Thomas's heart in the tips of his fingers. And if he can’t, well, there are other spots they could try, better spots for heartbeats. Not now, though.

“I have to go,” Thomas remembers suddenly. He should stand up, he knows. If he hurries now he might still get to the servant’s hall before Carson notices he’s missing. 

He doesn’t move.

“Yes,” Edward agrees. “You should go. Don't worry; I’ll be here.” 

_I love you_ , Thomas thinks, and that’s the thing that finally gives him the strength to pull away and stand.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he says, crossing to the door. “And tonight – we’ll try again.”


End file.
